What a difference a tier makes. I got slaughtered over and over on Tier V. I saw some really strange things I've never seen before. A game where EVERY one of the bots got a stripe. Another where ALL but one got a stripe. Unprecedented in my experience.

Then I gave that up after 10 losses to the defense in a row and went to Tier VI. Suddenly it was easy to be on offense. Just can not figure out this game.

What a difference a tier makes. I got slaughtered over and over on Tier V. I saw some really strange things I've never seen before. A game where EVERY one of the bots got a stripe. Another where ALL but one got a stripe. Unprecedented in my experience.

Then I gave that up after 10 losses to the defense in a row and went to Tier VI. Suddenly it was easy to be on offense. Just can not figure out this game.

@blindfold well, I just had a game on defense at tier 6, my first game of this portion of Red Comet. Essentially, defense was impossible. I was shooting planes down in the airfield as fast as they could come in and I could gun them down, but we still lost that sector relatively quickly. We lost the sectors I was not in even more quickly. A decent bomber, an HF or MR hitting a ground target and a fighter killing an air defense aircraft will flip the zone. One human simply can't kill the incoming planes fast enough to defend.

I had 11k points, the human on the other team (who was their high scorer) had about 7k (we were both in fighters). The attacking team basically just steamrolled my team. I say "we" and "team" but it was a 1v1 + bots match.

Here's the problem that I can see. Bots do NOT obey player respawn timers. They spawn as soon as you kill them. So, you simply have no breathing room when facing bots on offense. An argument could be made that the defense bots respawn just as fast. However, the problem arises in that as soon as one sector falls the units that took that sector are now free to overwhelm other sectors. Usually that first sector will be whatever sector the human player will go to and likely the closest to their initial spawn (and, therefore, very difficult for a defending human to reach before it is captured). So, once you push over the first domino, ALL the rest are GUARANTEED to fall.

This mode looks very broken, poorly tested (or completely untested), and (as usual) not well thought out in terms of balance or a 50/50 offense/defense split for which team the player would be on. That would have been simple to code into the matchmaker. "If previous match was offense, then next match is defense."

Edit: actually, on further observation it boils down to which bots got which skill level, just like tier 7+ in the normal mission mode. If the defense team gets "veteran" (medium) skill ai, they are as effective as "ace" (high) skill ai are in tier 7+ matches. I watched a team of 3 veteran ai HF decimate on defense (I was on offense). They were just shredding my derp HF MF who were (wait for it....) attacking ground targets. I couldn't get near them without getting TD'd to death. It was a tier 5 match and the bot ai felt like tier 8 ace ai.

So, ya. The bot ai and how imbalanced they are per team (as in the example I gave above with one team getting HF with skilled ai) is just as a big a factor as it is in normal tier 8+ matches.

@blindfold well, I just had a game on defense at tier 6, my first game of this portion of Red Comet. Essentially, defense was impossible. I was shooting planes down in the airfield as fast as they could come in and I could gun them down, but we still lost that sector relatively quickly. We lost the sectors I was not in even more quickly. A decent bomber, an HF or MR hitting a ground target and a fighter killing an air defense aircraft will flip the zone. One human simply can't kill the incoming planes fast enough to defend.

I had 11k points, the human on the other team (who was their high scorer) had about 7k (we were both in fighters). The attacking team basically just steamrolled my team. I say "we" and "team" but it was a 1v1 + bots match.

Here's the problem that I can see. Bots do NOT obey player respawn timers. They spawn as soon as you kill them. So, you simply have no breathing room when facing bots on offense. An argument could be made that the defense bots respawn just as fast. However, the problem arises in that as soon as one sector falls the units that took that sector are now free to overwhelm other sectors. Usually that first sector will be whatever sector the human player will go to and likely the closest to their initial spawn (and, therefore, very difficult for a defending human to reach before it is captured). So, once you push over the first domino, ALL the rest are GUARANTEED to fall.

This mode looks very broken, poorly tested (or completely untested), and (as usual) not well thought out in terms of balance or a 50/50 offense/defense split for which team the player would be on. That would have been simple to code into the matchmaker. "If previous match was offense, then next match is defense."

Edit: actually, on further observation it boils down to which bots got which skill level, just like tier 7+ in the normal mission mode. If the defense team gets "veteran" (medium) skill ai, they are as effective as "ace" (high) skill ai are in tier 7+ matches. I watched a team of 3 veteran ai HF decimate on defense (I was on offense). They were just shredding my derp HF MF who were (wait for it....) attacking ground targets. I couldn't get near them without getting TD'd to death. It was a tier 5 match and the bot ai felt like tier 8 ace ai.

So, ya. The bot ai and how imbalanced they are per team (as in the example I gave above with one team getting HF with skilled ai) is just as a big a factor as it is in normal tier 8+ matches.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and I see your point though I cannot agree with some of your statements.

1. Bots have the same respawn time as players. If a bot and a player are destroyed at the same time they will respawn at the same time. It theoretically might seem as you describe it as even 1 sec may make difference, when one aircraft gets in the first respawn wave and the second one has to wait for the next wave as was shot down later.

2. All bots in the battle are of the same skill level. For Tiers I-III, all of them will be beginners, for Tiers IV-V — warriors, and for Tiers VI-X — veterans.

hoom, on 24 May 2019 - 02:36 PM, said:

@WG/Blindfold, can you please make it so these Specials are enabled same time as the Server Reset?

I've been playing since the reset on 2*, just came out of a battle to find its 3* now but I've already done the 2* on my grind planes.

Yes I could keep an eye out for start time, convert to a timezone I understand and then not play for several hours after the reset until the Special rate kicks in.

But it'd be so much easier if the Specials kick in at server reset.

I'll ask the responsible team about it and we'll change it if possible.